The journey of an entrepreneur and his team into Adobe

March 26, 2014

Stéphane Dehoche is an engineer, an entrepreneur, a pilot and a family man.

Stéphane Dehoche was former CEO of Neolane, a French company that Adobe acquired in July 2013, and by September, Adobe Campaign—based on technology from Neolane—became the sixth solution in the Adobe Marketing Cloud. Today, Stéphane is vice president of Adobe Campaign. He leads his team to drive the integration of Neolane’s technology into the Adobe Marketing Cloud to further extend Adobe’s lead in digital marketing.

Adobe Life spoke with Stéphane to learn more about him, the team, and what the Neolane team and technology bring to Adobe.

Adobe Life: Tell us a little about yourself.Stéphane Dehoche: First, I’m a true engineer: I like machines, physics and mathematics. When I was young, I was passionate about two things: computers and planes. I wanted to be a pilot, with computing as my passion outside work. In the end, I’ve done the opposite. I’ve been a pilot since 1996; I fly a SOCATA TBM 850 (a single-engine turboprop light aircraft).

I’m also an entrepreneur; I like to grow business, to create—and what I like the most is building teams and helping everyone work together.

Adobe Life: Describe the team that joined Adobe from Neolane.Stéphane: We had around 350 employees—about half in France and the rest spread mostly across the Nordics, the U.K. and the U.S., with a few people in Germany and Singapore.

We all share a passion for what we do. To be part of a small company that grew as we did, you have to be passionate, because our environment was one of constant building and re-building. That’s something we have in common with all Adobe employees: That passion, that ability to evolve is in our DNA.

Neolane was small enough to still feel like a family. We worked hard as a team, and we celebrated our successes as a team. When we met our numbers, the company rewarded everyone.

Adobe Life: Now that you’re part of the Adobe family, what has been most interesting to you about the company?Stéphane: I’m impressed with the fact that Adobe is an intense user of new technology—from our own software to virtual printers, video conferencing and VIP security access. The scale of the business continues to amaze me, too.

I really like the Adobe people I’ve met. They are smart, and they know the business. This has helped make our integration easier, because we feel part of the same world.

Adobe Life: We’ve seen Neolane technology integrated quickly into the Marketing Cloud as Adobe Campaign. What further evolution can we expect?Stéphane: I’m looking forward to seeing an increase in our business in the U.S. Being a European company initially, entering the U.S. was challenging. With Adobe, we’ll be able to push the business to another level.

We continue to work with the broader Digital Marketing team here to integrate our technology into the Adobe Marketing Cloud. As that moves forward and we share more technologies, we’ll be more efficient and consistent, and we’ll provide an even better service.

More Information

This short video shows how a marketer can use Adobe Campaign to orchestrate cross-channel experiences. (Click on “See how Campaign works.”)